I’m new to this, so maybe my comments are juvenile and people will shake their heads at my ignorance, but is it just me, or is Jeffrey Zeldman a bit of an ass?
I admit, he knows his stuff, but he spent over half the time ranting. Even in his book he comes across negative.
Personal rant: The “great design” by Douglas Bowman called “Minima” – looks terrible. It’s a plain white page with writing on it. I understand (and love) the minimalist look, but that’s a new level of boring.
As an aspiring writer, I’m all for beauty in words, but if the layout isn’t pretty, well you just lost a viewer.
Now I don’t understand the technical architecture of a website (I guess that’s why I’m here), but making it physically attractive, that’s my business. If I don’t get to do that, then I’m not sure I want to learn the rest.
It’s much easier learning the technical side. Creativity, however, is not something that can be learnt. You either have it or you don’t.
Zeldman says good website design should entail “digital environments that facilitate and encourage human activity”, but if it isn’t aesthetically pleasing the only human activity it will encourage from me is clicking the little x in the top left hand corner.